Lonnie Lazar is a writer-musician-web designer-attorney. He writes about Apple for Cult of Mac and Mac|Life, and about VoIP and telecommunications for Voxilla. Follow Lonnie on Twitter @LonnieLazar, join the Cult of Mac on Facebook, and find Lonnie's photos on Flickr.
If you’ve not quite had your fill of news and information about the new iPhone 3G in the past three weeks, AppleInsider has launched a comprehensive review of the hardware and software for Apple’s latest advance in mobile computing, with a promise to assess its standing among other smartphones and mobile platforms in a weeklong series starting today. Complete with big pictures.
If you are a Mac Boot Camp user and ever wished you could easily re-allocate free partition space between Mac and Windows, Paragon software’s latest offering may be just what you’ve been looking for. A free, pre-release version of Camp Tune promises to let users redistribute free space between Macintosh and Windows partitions in minutes without data loss, adding free megabytes to partitions on either operating system quickly and easily.
While Leopard’s Disk Utility supports partition resizing, a Boot Camp partition cannot be re-sized without erasing it (although you could back it up first and restore it after re-sizing). Camp Tune’s disk image must be burned to a CD or DVD, creating a bootable Linux-based Disk which Tom Fedro, president of Paragon Software Group – Americas, says “helps remove the barriers between the Windows and Mac operating systems.”
CiSense parsed ten years worth of Apple’s trademark applications to produce an interesting widget that shows via the magic of a dynamic “tag cloud” how the company’s interests in technology have changed over the past decade.
While “computers” remains the most prominent term in the cloud throughout, terms such as “cd-rom” and “multimedia” disappear early on; “video,” “handheld” and “mobile” have become more prominent in recent years.
None of this is surprising, of course, but it is interesting to see a graphic representation of Apple’s evolving business focus.
Via ZDNet.
After a rocky three weeks since the official launch, Apple’s MobileMe service got an all-green status update Tuesday night. In a message to subscribers the company said it has established a dedicated chat line for anyone with ongoing problems related to MobileMe mail, the final piece in what the company calls “this new ambitious service” to become fully operational.
The status update also described a newly discovered bug which caused some MobileMe users to lose contact and calendar data on their iPhones, though the integrity of the data on their Macs and with the MobileMe “cloud” was unaffected.
Apple posted a resource for getting data restored to affected iPhones as well.
Image via iPhoneSavior
A quick peek at the iPhone availability widget reveals the model least-likely to be sold out at any Apple retail outlet is the 16GB in White.
The relatively ready supply of this particular model may or may not be related to possible side-effects of the injection-molding process used to manufacture the phone casings, which are apparently proving susceptible to hairline cracks, as reported by ZDNet.
It will be interesting to see how the re-sale value of white iPhones compares to that of the black models when the next hardware rev comes along.
Now that the AppStore has reached the milestone of 1000 iPhone applications on offer, the timing for the return of PerversionTracker could not be better.
Be sure to consult their incisive reviews of all the worst tripe at the AppStore before you blow your savings 99¢ at a time.
Picture messaging, text-based messaging and, soon, vocal instant messaging over the iPhone’s data connection come to the AppStore with Palringo’s Rich Messaging Service (RMS), a free application supporting over a half dozen popular messaging services to help you stay connected to your contacts without the need to switch between applications or use Web-based messaging.
Billions of people already use instant messaging on their home and work computers to communicate with each other. “Palringo adds vocal instant messaging and picture messaging and has put IM on the iPhone–that’s a great combination,” says CEO Kerry Ritz, stressing the program’s minimal data load. One megabyte is sufficient for Palringo to send/receive the equivalent of about 4,500 SMS messages, send/receive about 32 picture messages or send/receive as much as 15 minutes of vocal instant messages.
Available worldwide, Palringo lets conversations incorporate people from across the globe, on any mobile network or connected PC or Mac, which could make it very attractive for multi-national corporate users and extended family use.
The folks at ChannelFlip do a good service, if only to distract us from iPhone news and MobileMe angst.
Speculation regarding the “state of the art new products” to which Apple CTO Peter Oppenheimer alluded in last week’s earnings’ report began in earnest Monday as AppleInsider, Ars Technica and others weighed in on the nature and likelihood of the lineup we can expect to see officially announced sometime in the next six to eight weeks.
Will it be a Mac tablet, new notebooks sporting new chipsets, new iterations of iPod, a ripening of Apple TV – another iPhone release?
Whatever it is, we’re sure we can’t wait for it.
Apple has posted a job opportunity for a position it calls “iPhone Security Engineer.” An “exceptional individual” will get the chance to “have a major impact on Apple’s embedded operating system products,” according to the job posting.
Job requirements and useful experience include “passion for developing “proof of concept attacks, industry exposure to and knowledge of OS security and UNIX internals” and “involvement in reverse engineering and security communities.”
The company appears to be taking seriously recent criticisms of its nonchalance toward patching iPhone security holes and its less-than-full-embrace by the enterprise community.
Who says crime doesn’t pay?
Via Ars Technica
Phot courtesy ZD Net
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster issued a report Friday indicating Apple, Inc. Board of Directors should be obligated to inform shareholders of any material changes in Steve Jobs’ health that could impact his abilitiy to maintain his high-profile, active role in the company’s operations.
Citing the nature of Jobs’ public appearances and his active participation in the development of products like Macs and iPhones as aspects of Jobs’ role that make him material to the company’s performance, Munster wrote,”we believe that Apple’s board has a responsibility to disclose any changes that may impede him to continue to serve.”
Apple shares have been buffeted in trading since the company’s quarterly earnings call earlier this week, when CTO Peter Oppenheimer replied to questions about Jobs’ health by saying the topic is “a private matter.” A subsequent New York Times article indicated Jobs has recently been reassuring close associates that he remains cancer free in the wake of surgery earlier this year to deal with problems that had been causing him to lose weight.
Munster’s report today was meant to assure Piper Jaffray’s clients there is “no reason to believe that Steve Jobs will not continue to serve as Apple’s CEO,” and reaffirm Munster’s buy rating and $250 price target for Apple stock.
Via AppleInsider
Microsoft is taking a leaf from Apple’s playbook and re-organizing its major online services division to create a tighter link between hardware and software.
Microsoft has reorganized it’s Platforms and Services Division, responsible for products like online search and Internet Explorer, to more closely follow Apple’s “whole widget” approach of closely tying hardware to software and online services.
In a memo to employees, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer explains:
“In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1. But there is no doubt that Apple is thriving. Why? Because they are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to the end-to-end experience. Today, we’re changing the way we work with hardware vendors to ensure that we can provide complete experiences with absolutely no compromises. We’ll do the same with phones–providing choice as we work to create great end-to-end experiences.”
It sounds like Microsoft is going to try and replicate what it’s done with the XBox and the Zune — exert more control over hardware, software and cloud services.
For decades, Microsoft has thrived by selling its software to third-party vendors who build with commodity components and compete fiercly on price. This model works well when selling to businesses, whichare concerned with price and interopability, but increasingly, ordinary consumers are the grwoth market for the PC industry, and consumers care more about ease-of-use, reliability and good design. These of course, are Apple’s strengths.
Ballmer doesn’t seem to be suggesting that Microsoft bring hardware in-house, but rather initiate a tighter pairing between Microsoft’s software and the company’s third-party hardware partners. Examples of this kind of hardware/software alliance include Real Networks and Sandisk, which have teamed to make MP3 players; and Netflix and LG, which are collaborating on an online movie service integrated into LG’s TVs.
Ballmer specifically mentions phones, which are increasingly becoming mobile computing devices that could threaten Microsoft. Microsoft is rumored to be working on a Zune phone to rival the iPhone (and soon, Google’s Android).
Windows XP and Vista users who update to iTunes 7.7 — the version required to access the App Store — receive a complimentary control panel applet for Apple’s MobileMe online sync and storage service, and some are not happy about it.
Some PC users have been surprised to notice a “MobileMe Preferences” panel in their new version of iTunes, which makes no mention of installing additional software in the Software Update notice used to download iTunes. Users who are not already MobileMe subscribers are taken to an Apple marketing site with details about the service when they click on the “Learn More” button under a “Try MobileMe” heading in the control panel.
Apple’s decision to include the MobileMe pitch with iTunes without telling users caught the attention of Stopbadware.org, an anti-malware advocacy group founded by Google Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd. and Sun Microsystems Inc., which complained in April when Apple bundled Safari 3.1 into a Software Update notice to Windows users who had not previously installed the browser on their systems. Apple subsequently agreed to separate updates for already-installed programs from offers to install new software.
Maxim Weinstein, manager of Stopbadware.org., stopped short on Monday of calling Apple’s newest move a repeat of the Safari incident. “We haven’t had an opportunity to look at it, so we don’t have a formal evaluation,” he said. “But our guidelines require and the [user] community expects that when an application installs new or different functionality that users are notified and able to consent to that.”
Via Computerworld
Walter Mossberg, the Dean of MSM technology writers, has pronounced MobileMe “way too ragged” to be considered reliable.
His frank and unsentimental review of Apple’s web services product goes beyond the launch difficulties that have kept Apple’s support forums humming with angry subscribers and which prompted the company to extend members’ $100 annual subscriptions by 30 days last week. Citing his experience in extensive testing and interaction with Apple’s support team, Mossberg chronicles a list of half a dozen problems that make the service tedious, sluggish and unpredictable.
Apple engineers blame Microsoft Outlook quirks for issues related to calendar and address book synching and say they are working on fixes for other problems.
If you’re wondering whether it might be a good time to head to the nearest Apple Store to join the queue for a new iPhone, the folks at Top Muffin offer a comprehensive iPhone Availability Tracker.
The page is powered by data from Apple’s own availability widget and is updated every 15 minutes. The accuracy of Apple’s availability information has been questioned by some in the chaotic first two weeks since the 3G model launch, prompting Top Muffin to recommend calling stores first to confirm stock on-hand.
The Computer Science Department at Stanford University will offer a course in iPhone programming in the Fall Semester, according to its latest course schedule.
It is unclear at this point whether Apple will object to the course offering under the terms of its SDK confidentiality agreement.
Via TUAW
A number of third-party iPhone application developers are unhappy with continuing restrictions imposed under the Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA) they signed when they joined Apple’s Software Developers Program.
Perhaps some innocently assumed once the AppStore launched their iPhone applications into the wild the terms of the NDA would magically disappear. Others may have simply failed to read the document they were signing.
In any event, a few have put together a website to express their frustration. Be aware the link may be NSFW, depending on your place of employ. The argument seems to be that inability to talk freely with one another about their challenges and successes hampers the advancement of the platform, though, we’re guessing Apple’s legal department thought of that one before drawing up the document.
Via TUAW
AT&T has authorized stores in its Northern California region to begin taking iPhone pre-sale orders with a promise of 72hr availability, according to the manager of one of the region’s busiest stores. In an email sent to store managers this morning, the wireless carrier said stores could promise customers they would have a phone in 3 days if they sign up for new service or upgrade their eligible hardware in-store and pass the requisite credit checks to establish a new two year service contract. Customers get a call from the store in three days when their phone arrives and are required to return to the store to complete service activation and pick up the handset.
The store manager said all AT&T retail stores in his region have been out of stock since the first wave of phones sold out in the days after its initial release on July 11. “It’s a marketing ploy by Apple,” he said, responding to a question about the lack of inventory at AT&T stores. “They release one or two hundred thousand phones and spread them all over and then do it again once those are sold out.” Describing the scenes of chaos in his store in the days after the launch, he said, “We actually prefer direct-ship. It keeps the crowds down so we can service our other customers and we don’t have to call the police to help with crowd control.”
Long lines are still present at the few Apple Stores in the country with inventory today, as iPhone buyers remain wiling to stand in line for two to three hours to make purchases directly from Apple.
Earlier today AT&T said iPhone 3G sales during the first twelve days were nearly double that of last year, despite shortages that have seen backorders up to three weeks at some of its retail stores nationwide. A company spokesman confirmed the official policy indicating a 13 to 14 day wait on direct-ship orders this afternoon, but indicated some regions could have greater availability than others.
Steve Jobs has been reassuring associates and colleagues about the state of his health, according to the New York Times. After undergoing treatment four years ago for a rare form of pancreatic cancer, Jobs is “cancer-free,” according to sources close to him, but he did undergo a surgical procedure this year to address a problem that was contributing to a loss of weight.
A great deal of speculation over Job’s health and uncertainty regarding his future prospects as CEO of Apple contributed to a sharp decline in Apple’s stock yesterday, after the company reported solid earnings and a muted outlook for the next quarter on Monday after the markets closed. Today AAPL is trading at $164 per share, $2 higher than yesterday’s close, but up $18 from yesterday’s intra-session lows.
Much of the speculation surrounding Jobs’ health began in response to his appearance at the WWDC conference last month, where he appeared wan and quite thin. According to an industry executive who spoke with Jobs and was a source for the Times report, Jobs had run a high fever for the week preceding WWDC. Apple had previously said that Jobs had come down with a “common bug” which was treated with antibiotics, and additional speculation and concern were sparked by remarks in the Monday conference call, in which the company said Jobs’ health is “a private matter.”
AT&T Research Labs is testing a web based application that will bring limited voice control functionality to the iPhone. The so-called Speech Mashups, based on AT&T’s WATSON speech recognition engine, is a web service requiring high-speed wireless access to the internet in order to allow voice control of certain functions, such as entering text into web forms. The service appears to fall well short of meeting the demand for voice dialing, expressed by many as a must-have feature in a mobile phone.
The lone voice dialing application available on the AppStore appears to be Speechcloud Voice Dialer, whose 300+ commenters have thus far given it a 2.5 star rating.
The AT&T Labs chart below shows the complexity of delivering its web-based Speech Mashups solution, though, with the prevalence of speech recognition capability so widespread among other mobile handset manufacturers, we wonder what it is about Apple’s device that has made voice dialing such a difficult hurdle to clear.
Apple’s support forums are hopping today with customers angry about continuing problems with the rollout of MobileMe web services. The MobileMe Mail category has over 13,000 messages that have been viewed more than 50,000 times, with many of the messages expressing anger and frustration over a mail server crash and unexpected fiber-optic line problems that have left some subscribers without email access for as many as five straight days, according to AppleInsider.
Apple’s system status message acknowledges the MobileMe Mail issue but claims only 1% of its subscribers are affected. If that’s the case, the problems would appear to have struck a particularly vocal 1%.
We were writing just last week that Apple’s lawsuit against Psystar could be the final stake in the heart of Mac clone computer makers. Some ideas are just too irresistible to die, we guess, because here comes a guy named Elijia Samaroo and his company, Open Tech, Inc waving a new red flag in the face of Apple’s legal department with the promise of an “open” computer that runs OS X.
Open Tech claims to be aware of the legal problems incurred by Psystar and intends to avoid them by not pre-loading its machines with OS X, the blatant violation of Apple’s licensing terms that should prove Psystar’s undoing. Open Tech says it plans to simply configure a system for the intended OS — Windows, OS X , Linux, Ubuntu — and provide a “do-it-yourself” kit that will help with whatever OS a customer buys separately.
Grab the popcorn and soda, and recall the ending of Basic Instinct.
Mock up via Flickr
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Muntster wrote for his clients today “We believe there is an 80% chance Apple will introduce redesigned MacBooks and possibly new MacBook Pros at lower price points. Specifically, Apple may re-enter the $999 price point (currently $1099) with the MacBook, or test the $1,799 price point with the MacBook Pro (currently $1999).” Thus, the news from yesterday’s stellar earnings report is all about Apple’s future – new products on the horizon and facelifts for old friends.
The consensus appears to be that Apple will be slashing prices on on Macs in an effort to increase market share that has moved Mac into third place in the US and has Apple knocking on the door of 10% among all US computer buyers.
Additional speculation about new products in the pipeline – Oppenheimer referred in yesterday’s hour-long earnings report to Apple’s penchant for introducing “state of the art new products at price points our competitors can’t match” – has people salivating about a multi-touch Mac, a new iPhone-like PDA, new mid-to-low priced Mac workstations and more.
Whatever it is – whatever they may be – Apple’s new products are likely to follow in the mold of the company’s decade-long success introducing, in Oppenheimer’s words, something with “technologies and features that others can’t match.”
Mock up via Flickr
Apple opened the first of two planned retail stores in Beijing, China over the weekend, at the Sanlitun retail complex. Enjoy our gallery of photos by several fine photographers. All images courtesy of Creative Commons or copyright the individual photographers.
Via Gizmodo
The iPhone Dev Team released its Pwnage jailbreak tool for iPhone over the weekend. Despite the tool’s inability to unlock iPhones for use with unapproved phone carriers and decreased demand for “illegal” apps in the light of Apple’s own AppStore, enough curious parties overwhelmed Dev Team servers and forced mirror sites into service to satisfy iPhone’s teeming masses still yearning to break free.
The tool jailbreaks and unlocks older iPhones, and jailbreaks iPhone 3Gs and iPod Touches but “We only support the 2.0 firmwares,” according to the Dev Team’s blog.
